Governor Gavin Newsom made a brief stop at the California Office of Emergency Services on Tuesday as over 100 public information officers from law enforcement, school districts and fire departments were gathering for an emergency communications academy.
The academy was organized to train the front line people who coordinate information when disaster strikes. Leslie Carbaugh of the Yuba County Sheriff's department says its particularly helpful to make cross agency contacts. "I'm here getting general emergency management training but the exposure to all these other entities outside of law enforcement is bringing value to my training. It gets me outside my immediate agency and I start to learn about how these other contacts can be important in an emergency".
The public information officers were put through mock radio and TV interviews based on disaster scenarios . Bryan May of Cal OES says the academy is even more important after the camp fire. "We weren't fully prepared with the amount of evacuations that happened and the total loss of infrastructure", said May, "We have to look at the way we get messaging out, the way we prepare people and how we tell people to get out at a moments notice."
The Academy wrapped up on Tuesday afternoon with the governor signing several executive orders to fund and train emergency agencies.
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